Sajid Javid and Jeremy Hunt have both pledged to cut taxes if they are successful in their bids to become prime minister.
The Tory bigwigs announced they were entering the race to succeed Boris Johnson in the Sunday Telegraph.
Each promised to cancel Rishi Sunak’s planned rise in corporation tax, and instead cut the 25 per cent rate to 15 per cent.
Javid – whose resignation from the cabinet on Tuesday ultimately led to Johnson announcing he was quitting as PM – also pledged to scrap the national insurance rise brought in when he was health secretary to help pay for the NHS and social care.
He said: “I’m not sure I would have done it if I had been chancellor, but I was focused on my job and I’m not trying to do other people’s jobs for them.”
Both Hunt and Javid tried and failed to become Tory leader three years ago.
Hunt and Javid’s announcements came just hours after cabinet trio Liz Truss, Grant Shapps and Nadhim Zahawi said they were launching their own bids to become PM.
Former chancellor Rishi Sunak and attorney general Suella Braverman have also declared they are running.
Both Truss and Shapps plan to target frontrunner Sunak in their bids to enter Number 10.
According to the Mail on Sunday, the foreign secretary will pledge to reverse the £12bn hike in national insurance Sunak introduced while he was chancellor, and scrap the £16bn increase in corporation tax planned for next year.
Meanwhile, Shapps took a clear swipe at the former chancellor – who resigned last Tuesday in protest at Johnson’s leadership – by saying he had “not spent the last few turbulent years plotting or briefing against the prime minister”.
Zahawi pledged to lower taxes for individuals, families and business, boost defence spending, and continue with schools reforms that he started while he was education secretary.
